


and be less like you

by short_tandem_repeats



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Teen Angst, also yuri says fuck every other sentence because that's how i talked at 15, victor is condescending and yuri is rude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 23:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/short_tandem_repeats/pseuds/short_tandem_repeats
Summary: Victor tries to be helpful; Yuri strenuously objects.





	and be less like you

**Author's Note:**

> all I can write is short character pieces I guess! this is kind of old; I wrote it shortly after I finished the anime but I'm only posting it now.

He likes practicing in the middle of the day, when the sunlight comes in high and bright through the windows and everyone else is taking a break to eat lunch or whatever.

He could probably stand to take a break too, but Yuri is a Grand Prix gold medalist at 15, and there's no way he's resting on his laurels now: he's got work to do if he wants to top his performance at the Final. So it's really obnoxious how much his feet are starting to hurt. He's been skating since early morning, but he's tougher than this, his body shouldn't be complaining at him with the day not even half-over.

Eventually, he fumbles what should be an easy step sequence, and the pain and stiffness is really too much to ignore. He tells himself that the ice is too chewed up to bother working for much longer anyway, and goes to assess the damages.

It's annoying that he can't stop from hissing in pain as he works his skates off in the locker room. His feet are a rainbow of bruises and pressure sores, and the cold air from the open rink door makes it feel worse, not better. He feels a faint thrill of panic - if he doesn't ice his feet, they're gonna swell, he might not be able to get his skates back on later, and then what is he gonna do? -but he ignores it and starts wiping off his blades. It's all just equipment, and his skates need seeing to before his feet, anyway.

"Yurio?" Victor's soft voice, from the rink door. He must be back from eating.

Yuri doesn't look up. "You know my name isn't Yurio. Fuck do you want?"

Victor wanders over to lean against the lockers, and Yuri still doesn't look up. He's wiping out the insides of his boots. Victor can pull a Phichit and take a goddamn picture if it fascinates him so much.

"You should ice your feet," Victor says, and that gets Yuri to look up.

"You think I'm fucking stupid?" he snaps. "I'm going to." Victor only makes a little moue at him, and Yuri wishes he still had his skates on, so he could kick Victor in the shins.

"You were coming down pretty hard on your jumps earlier," Victor says. "You could-"

"Shut up and stop pretending that you're not complete garbage as a coach," Yuri growls. He's wiggling his toes, trying to get feeling back into them, and he's not looking at Victor anymore.

"You've grown," says Victor after a moment, as if he's had some kind of revelation, as if it's not obvious. "Your center of gravity is changing and you're not fully compensating for it yet."

Yuri looks back up just so he can fix Victor with the most withering gaze possible. "What, you think I'm getting fat, like your pig boy lover? Piss off, I don't need to hear about ice and jumps and fucking centers of gravity from _you_."

Victor doesn't seem impressed with Yuri's dagger eyes. After a couple seconds pass, Yuri thinks he's just going to wander away, but he realizes Victor's looking down at his battered feet. Stung, Yuri pulls them under the bench and hunches defensively, and Victor, as is only fucking typical, seems to come to some unknown, unfathomable decision.

He sighs, very quietly. "Yuri...Yurachka," he says, tone almost paternal, and Yuri bridles, something vicious already on the tip of his tongue. "You're at a point of transition in your career. Your body is changing, and I know you know how important it is not to put too much stress on your joints and bones as they develop. One injury could be the end." Victor's looking down at him, so the hair falls in his eyes. His voice is even, reproving, and serious - exactly as you'd expect a coach to sound. Yuri wants to kill him.

He scrambles to his feet. Pain zings all the way up to his knees, but he doesn't stumble or sit back down. "You worthless bastard, you're gonna stand here and treat me like I don't already fucking know?"

He lunges forward, standing on tiptoe - his ankles scream - so that he can shout directly in Victor's face. "So fucking what I'm growing? I know! It's my own goddamn body! But I'm never going to be able to surpass it and keep skating at a high level if people treat me like...like a six year old girl!"

In his mind's eye, he sees Yuuko's triplets, their mother herding them off the ice because they're just too young, and his head swims with rage. He's not a child, he's not weak, and his throat _doesn't_ close for a moment with terror at how much is at stake, with how much pain he's in, has been in, and he sees himself dropping to hands and knees on the ice at Rostelecom, retching and gasping, _one injury could be the end_.

Victor, unfazed, looks down at him. He's wearing one of those stupid Nikiforov expressions that could mean literally anything, annoyance or disappointment or sadness or forbearance or hatred or _something_. He reaches up and pushes the hair out of his eyes.

"Yuri. I hate to see you skate with such reckless disregard for your limits, especially when it's only in practice." His expression shifts, minutely, fondness or wistfulness or worry. "You're too good of a skater - too much skill, and far too much artistry - to burn yourself out so soon."

Yuri can't explain why, but this fills him with absolute, blind fury.

"WHY? SO I CAN BECOME LIKE YOU?" he snarls, and feels a stab of cruel gladness when Victor's eyes widen. "So that I can have a long career? So that I can stop giving my whole self to skating because I'm BORED? So that I can fade into the background and be a shitty coach for some skater who could be great if he wasn't so fucking WEAK? So that I can be around long enough to see everything I worked for FUCKING SHOWN UP, and just stand there and pretend to be HAPPY about it? So that I can skate one last shitty season even though I know it's fucking OVER? SO THAT I CAN BE FORGOTTEN LIKE YOU'LL BE, NIKIFOROV?!?"

Yuri has to drop back to flat feet. He can't see straight, his skin is on fire, and his feet and ankles are pounding. He drops down to sit on the bench, not really on purpose. His chest heaves. He watches Victor.

Victor's let his hair fall back in his face. His expression is more opaque than ever.

"I have practicing to do. Ice your feet," he says, in that soft tone, like nothing at all happened.

Before he turns away, he says, so _gently_ , "Be careful, Yurachka."

Yuri is left screaming the most horrible things he can think of at Victor's back as he disappears deeper into the locker room.

**Author's Note:**

> if you can figure out what the title is a reference to, please make fun of me in the comments


End file.
